Founded in 1970 as a suicide hotline in the basement of Birmingham city hall, the city’s Crisis Center now receives over 35,000 calls a year according to Executive Director Meg McGlamery.

“A couple of volunteers with open hearts and minds decided to literally answer the call,” said McGlamery. “It was just a couple of phone lines and since then the program has expanded to what it is now.”

The center now hosts six phone lines in total which serve four main areas of focus: substance misuse, mental illness, suicide intervention and prevention, and sexual assault support services.

These lines are accredited by the American Association of Suicidology, the International Counsel for Help Lines and Alabama Coalition Against Rape.

Volunteers and staff operate the sexual assault response and suicide hotlines 24/7 every day of the year as these two lines receive the bulk of the center’s calls.